


The Darkness and Them

by duckcrab



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-21
Updated: 2010-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-20 16:19:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/587331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckcrab/pseuds/duckcrab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title: The Darkness and Them<br/>Fandom: Inception<br/>Summary: Ariadne and Arthur are just friends.<br/>Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur<br/>Rating: G<br/>Notes: <img/> <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/5987.html?thread=8478051#t8478051">prompt</a>: Arthur and Ariadne are good friends and that's it. Then one of them gets tired of it and decides to takes things out of the Friend Zone in a dramatic way. Optional platonic co-habitation to build the tension.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Darkness and Them

He is in Paris for a job.

Researching a mark, he says.

Might be a while, he says.

Nowhere else to go, he says.

Right.

His eyes are tired, and everything down to his posture relays the message that he is exhausted. His right side is sagging against the doorframe, his t-shirt is wrinkled from however many hours he spent on the plane, and he has run his fingers through his hair—in what she liked to imagine was exasperation—one too many times.

“I have a couch,” she says. “Take it or leave it.”

“You smell like alcohol,” she adds as he passes.

“I don’t like airplanes,” he says then turns back to tack on a sleepy yet sincere, “Thank you.”

He drops his bag at the end of the sofa, collapses onto the cushions, and doesn’t move until morning.

 

Arthur will not be the worst houseguest she has ever had.

He is gone before she wakes but he has made coffee.

This is how she knows.

 

For the first two weeks he does this often, this routine of leaving before she wakes up and not returning until she is about to go back to sleep. Sometimes the only words that are exchanged are the commonplace and often mumbled ‘goodnights’ as they pass each other outside the bathroom door.

_The enthusiasm_ , she tells a friend, _is palpable_.

At the beginning of the third week she is surprised to see him in the kitchen when she shuffles in for coffee. She thinks maybe it’s just a fluke, maybe his plans changed suddenly.

But then he’s there on the second day, and then the third day.

“Done with your research already?” she asks one morning, hiding a yawn behind her fist a second later.

“Oh, no,” he says. “I’m just into phase two now.”

Her eyebrows tick up momentarily as she thinks, _There are phases_.

 

Both of their homework is spread out over the coffee table.

Arthur’s subject matter is far more interesting, she finds, and easily loses hours studying the mark with him. He is a Frenchman (this much is obvious), the usual smarmy businessman type. But he has a family, Ariadne reads. A wife, children, people who depend on him. It seems unfair to punish them for his poor choices.

“You can’t do this,” Ariadne says.

Arthur has his socked feet up on the edge of the table, and just a moment before they had been moving from side to side to the rhythm beating inside his brain. Now they are still.

“Excuse me?”

“He has no idea what’s about to happen to him,” she says shaking her head, “It's not fair.”

He smirks, “If I warned him it would defeat the purpose.”

Ariadne finds no humor in the situation. "It's not fair, Arthur. We shouldn’t have done it.”

And _damn_ if he doesn’t catch her slip of the tongue.

“ _We_ shouldn’t have done it?”

“Forget it,” she says, and stands, moving towards the door. He stands with her.

“Ariadne—”

“I have to go,” she says, slipping out. “I have to study.”

Her school bag, heavy with books, stays by the door.

He is still awake when she returns.

"I'll be gone by the end of the week," he says. "Job should be over on Thursday. Plane leaves Friday."

She nods.

"Goodnight, Arthur."

 

Monday and Tuesday pass without a word. He retreats deeper into himself, offers even less than before. Not a smile, not a gesture; he doesn't even make the coffee anymore.

He centers himself while she orbits around, making sure that he has eaten and slept.

On Wednesday, sleep is nearly all that he does. When he wakes for a single meal she asks him if he has a team.

"It's a fairly simple job," he says. He quickly mentions an architect, someone she's never heard of, and she's not sure how she should feel about this. Overlooked? Underestimated? Forgotten? Or respected, that he realizes she wants to finish school above all other things. 

There's a mischievous twinkle in his eye when he adds. "I am meeting someone on the train."

"Blonde?"

"The mark prefers brunettes."

"Well then," she smiles, "tell Eames I say hello."

 

And then there's Thursday. _That_ Thursday.

"You're making me nervous," he says to her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

"Sorry. I'll go back to bed."

"I was only teasing."

"Can't a friend worry about a friend?"

He pulls the knot of his tie up, and she can't understand why he likes it that tight. Doesn't he feel like he's being strangled?

"It's not like you're interviewing at the local grocer."

"I'll be fine," he says, and it's practiced. Before her there had been someone else to reassure. Probably someone else before that. Sister? Mother? Girlfriend? Wife?

_Can't a friend worry about a friend?_  

_Right._ She doesn't even know his last name, or if Arthur is actually his first name.

But it's the one he gives her, so it's the one she uses; the one she whispers as she leans against the open door, the one that makes him turn back, maybe even the one that makes him bend to meet her lips halfway.

_Be careful_ , she wants to say.  _Be careful. Don't go. Come back. I love you. Can't you see that?_

Her palm rests lightly against his chest as they come apart, become of two minds again, unsure of everything, just waiting for the aftershocks to knock them off balance.

He has to leave, she knows, so she gives him a push. 

 

Lectures drag and turn into a low hum at the base of her skull as she draws in the margins of her notebook, imagines the classroom folding over onto itself, thinks of ideas, and safe combinations.

At five o'clock she returns to find her flat completely untouched. Arthur's bag is where it has been for a month. Pillows and blankets are all properly askew on the couch. Everything is perfectly out of place.

_It's alright,_ she thinks, tries to make herself believe it. _He's alright._

 

Endings can be so much like beginnings.

 

He sags against the doorframe long after the sun has gone down. It's just the darkness and them.

"You again," she says.

"I'm like a bad penny. Is that couch still available?"

"Yeah," she says. Adds, "You smell like alcohol."

He walks inside, but doesn't pass her by.

"I don't like trains," he says, palms sliding along her hips.

Her mouth opens under his. He is sweet and bitter at the same time.

 

"Your plane?"

"There will be others."


End file.
